Angels and Demons
I just got pretty hacked off watching Angels and Demons. Was I the only one to be rooting for the wrong side in this one? I don't really know why I bothered watching the film (or reading the book, for that matter - which I did quite a while back) but I was on a long-haul flight and thought it would pass the time to watch a longer film such as this. But I started getting very frustrated at the dramatic music and directorial tricks used to heighten the anxiety when it looked like - heaven forbid - the very core of the Catholic church was under serious threat. The hero is supposed to be an atheist - well what's he doing spending all his time trying to reasearch and ultimately save the church? Of course, if the "bad guys" had won it would have only served to create martyrs which would possible have strengthened the church, but all the same, I was left feeling very unfulfilled that what was supposed to be an uplifting ending meant the Vatican and the Papacy survived with its integrity in tact.
I happen to like thrillers as a genre, usually more for reading than watching, but I find a lot of books and films extremely annoying when I've invested so much time and emotion in them and then they turn out to be just some sort of vehicle for a thinly-disguised message regarding the enduring power and righteousness of Christianity.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Little Name Atheist on -
Maybe watching the episode of Penn and Teller's teevee show "Bullshit!" that roasted the Vatican will make you feel better.
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Permalink Reply by Max Polun on -
I haven't seen the movie, but I liked the book as a bit of mindless fun. I don't know if they changed anything (well, they certainly changed the chronology since "angels and demons" take place before "the davinci code" in the books and the other way around in the movies, but other than that...). A couple points:
- Just because they're priests doesn't mean they should be killed. Take down the catholic church? Yes. Terrorist attack on the Vatican? No. Besides, that would damage all of the priceless works of art :)
- The whole "secular terrorists are going to destroy the Vatican" thing annoyed me a bit, the fact that it was revealed to be an (Spoiler Alert) overzealous priest doing it to blame the secularists at the end took the edge off a bit.
Of course it's been a few years since I read the book, so I may have missed a strong pro-church message there.
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Permalink Reply by Martin Allen on -
Fair points. I also think i probably enjoyed the book when i read it, and while I say I was on the side of the bad guys, I wouldn't condone killing priests, or anyone else, for that matter. It's just the whole idea of this "whatever would we do if the Catholic church collapsed?" thing annoys me. Personally I think the world would be a much better place if they abandoned the church and all became humanist atheists. that would have been a better ending.
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